from the IP-as-low-rent-thug dept

When you've run out of good ideas and constructive actions, there's always IP abuse. It's the perfect accomplice for all sorts of abusive behavior. Don't like someone using your own words against you? Just holler about copyright until the criticism goes away. Pissed off by a bad review? Fire off copyright claims on the footage used in the video.

Fair use and YouTube will never work in sync, mainly for logistical reasons. So it has become a go-to platform for IP abusers. Here's yet another story in which a legitimate YouTube account is a few steps closer to permanent death because a person decided to act vindictively, rather than responsibly.

The backstory: the Cup of LinuxYouTube channel handles all things Linux, including coverage of distributions and how-to guides for new users. One Linux developer, Antoni Norman, is the main force behind the Pinguy OS Linux/Ubuntu hybrid. Over the years, he's been a valuable contributor to the Linux community, including the one centered around Cup of Linux. Also, over the years, Shawn Patrick Ryan ("Spatry") has covered Pinguy OS releases in a number of YouTube videos. So far, so good.

Pinguy was banned by moderators of my community at cupoflinux.com for several counts of misconduct while impaired. Pinguy is a great source of information and we have been more lenient with him than anyone else. I was going to consider lifting his ban after a 3 month period to send a strong message to him that we will not tolerate bad behavior from anyone. This act of acrimony makes his ban permanent and is treated as a "trademark troll" attack. The GNU general public license grants us the freedom to use GPL software in any way we see fit with the inclusion modifying, sharing and providing tutorials under FAIR USE.

Users who require support for "P I N G U Y - O S" will need to direct their inquiries to their forum. The developer was justly banned from this community for multiple counts of bad behavior on our Mumble server.

In retaliation the developer of "P I N G U Y - O S" filed a trademark complaint against Cup of Linux for having promotional videos of that product. All developer posts have been removed from this board and all related materials have been purged from my YouTUBE channel. The forced removal of such videos do not hurt me personally but causes harm to community members who benefit from the tutorials.

Compiz videos tied to that series will be re-branded and re-released without "P I N G U Y - O S" logos or verbiage.

This is the notice Spatry received.

This has every appearance of being done for purely retaliatory reasons. This concern about his Pinguy trademarks didn't manifest itself until after he was banned from the Cup of Linux forums and server. Spatry has provided more evidence of the previously friendly relationship these two enjoyed, including Norman's appearance on videos produced by Cup of Linux, as well as his willingness to share his Pinguy OS logo with others for their own use.

This thread features both Spartry and Norman discussing a recent video featuring the Pinguy OS developer as a guest. Again, everything about the discussion is friendly. The only thing notable about it is Norman's assertion that he shouldn't have done the video "at 3am after 8 beers." Despite the abusive behavior leading to his banning being (apparently) alcohol-related, there's nothing in this discussion that indicates Norman crossed any lines during this recording session.

So, we have a friendly relationship that went south, due to Norman's problematic behavior when impaired. Norman had any number of options available to address this situation if he felt it was unfair. But rather than use any of those routes (appeal to moderators, wait out the suspension, address it at his own forum, etc.), he decided to jeopardize Cup of Linux's YouTube account by deliberately issuing bogus takedown demands.

As Spatry points out, the use of any Pinguy OS trademarks (and there's no evidence any of these are registered -- although ultimately that lack of official registration has little bearing on Norman's right to issue takedowns) was clearly fair use. The marks were used in the context of instructional videos and, apparently with Norman's full support prior to his banning. This is nothing more than Norman abusing tenuously-held "rights" to retaliate against Spatry for banning him.

YouTube has allowed Spatry to make changes in response to the requests and his channel doesn't seem to be threatened with a shutdown at this point. But that could change. The system is easily abused and Norman knows it. The amount of damage he can do is disproportionate to the actual "harm" he's experienced -- both by being banned and (especially) by having his suddenly beloved "trademarks" used in videos that were largely supportive of him and his OS.

Norman experienced no harm from Spatry's use of his trademarks. If he felt he had, he never mentioned it during the previous few years of interaction. It wasn't until he engaged in self-destructive behavior that he suddenly became interested in "protecting" his IP. Spatry is challenging the claims, but everything about the situation will be left up to YouTube's mostly automated processes. Context -- as well as fair use considerations -- won't be considered. No doubt Norman is aware how slanted the system is towards rightsholders. He knew he could hurt Spatry and his channel and suffer zero repercussions. The only damage he'll suffer is to his reputation.

This last avenue is the only route Spatry and Cup of Linux have available to them while YouTube sorts this out. While Spatry points out that Norman has been a useful contributor in the past, his current activity makes him any enemy of the same community he claims to be a part of.

As a community leader, I feel that I would be doing a major dis-service by keeping silent. If Antoni Norman wants to censor the community, maybe he should consider removing GPL licensing and applications from his operating system because this goes against everything the Free and Open software community stands for.

At this point, Spatry has removed an additional 29 23 videos from his channel in hopes of steering clear of further retaliatory actions -- above and beyond the six being disputed. That's 35 29 videos gone because of bogus trademark claims motivated by nothing more than vindictiveness. While we can all appreciate creators' desire to protect their creations, the solution isn't a system that can easily be exploited by petty individuals who have run out of good ideas.

from the know-thyself dept

A year ago, Techdirt wrote about a new unit set up by the City of London Police to tackle crimes involving intellectual monopolies. Since then, there have been a flood of posts about its increasingly disproportionate actions, including seizing domain names, shutting down websites, inserting ads on websites, and arresting someone for running an anti-censorship proxy. This makes a PCPro interview with the head of that unit, Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Andy Fyfe, particularly valuable, since it helps shed a little light on the unit's mindset. It's well-worth reading the whole thing, but here's a key section:

I'm very interested in having a debate in the media about how much policing of the internet people want. At the moment, there’s almost no regulation and no policing of the internet and that means members of the public -- such as you and I -- when we're trying to use it for shopping or to do internet shopping, actually don’t have anyone looking out for our interests to make sure that the people we’re dealing with at the other end of the line are legitimate or reasonable or looking after our data properly.

In the end, that might mean that the internet becomes completely ungovernable, and that no one can dare operate on it at all, no one can dare do their shopping or banking on it.

DCI Fyfe seems to be talking about a different Internet from the one most of us use, which is not just subject to regulations, but to multiple regulations because of the way overlapping jurisdictions are involved. Indeed, because of this, the Internet arguably has far more policing than the physical world. Moreover, in terms of "looking out for our interests," the Internet is unique in that its users are able to do that for themselves using online rating systems, reviews left on websites and general comments on social networks. Word about dodgy online operators gets out incredibly quickly, so in this respect, we are probably far safer online than in the physical world where such mechanisms are rarely available.

However, it is true that there is a threat to online shopping and banking, but not the one DCI Fyfe is probably thinking about. Buying and selling goods, or transferring money online, is relatively safe thanks to strong encryption that is now routinely available for such operations. Or rather, it was relatively safe until spy agencies like the NSA and GCHQ decided to undermine the entire basis of these activities for their own purely selfish ends, and disregarding the collateral damage they would cause to general users of the Internet.

Despite the harm caused by such actions, DCI Fyfe thinks a time may come when the government will want to interfere even more:

That time might come, but it's how much interference the public will tolerate, because clearly a lot of people believe there should be no state interference at all on the internet, but that leads to lawlessness and anarchy.

The growing crusade of DCI Fyfe's unit against online sites purely on the say-so of the copyright industry shows that he doesn't really care what "a lot of people" think about state interference. And when it comes to "anarchy and lawlessness," acting without court orders seems to fit that bill rather well.

King said she is not concerned about the Development Agenda [at WIPO], but that there is still a need for greater balance for those who have IP rights.

In other words, she's not as worried, but she apparently feels that WIPO is somehow biased against patent and copyright holders. I suppose keeping out those evil Pirates out of WIPO was a step in the right direction, then....

Hidden towards the bottom of the report is (yet another) terrible proposal, guided by the heavy hand of self-interest. It plainly spells out the commission's priorities: American IP above all else, even the health and well-being of other nations.

Recommend to Congress and the administration that U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) program budget in whole or in part be withheld until (1) the WHO’s process of certifying national regulatory agencies includes attestation that IP protection is an essential part of the regulatory evaluation process, and (2) the WHO refrains from prequalifying any product until the regulating agency of jurisdiction demonstrates and certifies that it does not violate IP rights...

The U.S. government has leverage at the WHO chiefly because of its financial support, which consists of annual “means tested” contributions to the WHO’s program budget and “voluntary” contributions whose total value is about $350 million. This support from the United States can be a carrot or a stick to influence the WHO’s actions.

So, if the WHO puts health ahead of American IP holders, the US should just cut off its contributions to the organization, and indirectly, the countries it assists. One would think that the "regulatory evaluation process" would be primarily concerned with ensuring new drugs and medical technology do more good than harm, healthwise. The possibility of IP infringement probably doesn't even cross the radar of the WHO. That job belongs to other agencies.

But the commission ties IP enforcement and worldwide health together, forcing one to rely on the other by linking US monetary contributions to protection of American IP. The WHO would now be required to make sure rights holders aren't being cut out of a market before attempting to solve larger problems -- like halting an outbreak before it becomes an epidemic.

The commission also suggests the US solicit a little help with its low-level IP extortion by asking for other affected countries (affected by IP theft -- not widespread health issues) to follow its lead in chaining contributions to IP enforcement.

Multilateral coordination may also be possible. For example, the IP of Japanese-developed medicine is frequently stolen, and Japan’s current annual and voluntary contributions to the WHO total over $70 million.

With enough support, maybe the commission can force the WHO to properly reflect its new priorities by dropping the "H" (which is of secondary concern) and replace it with "IP" (job #1). WIPO!

The commission "recommends" this course of action but can't "endorse" it quite yet, possibly because it will make everyone involved look like a bunch of greedy meatbags who value their profits over the health of the developing world. (Heavily paraphrased -- here's the original.)

The Commission believes this recommendation has strong promise but is not ready to endorse it. To be acted upon, this recommendation requires careful assessment of the likely impacts and the potential for unintended consequences. It will be essential to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable across the world continue to have access to life-saving, high-quality health interventions, now and in the future. In fact, IP protections are vital to that outcome, because they preserve incentives for innovation and foster predictable markets for manufacturers.

In other words, we like it but we can't endorse until we can mitigate the unintended consequences (one of which was listed earlier). The poorest and most vulnerable across the world should still have access to lifesaving medicine and technology, pending licensing approval and WHO due diligence. (The last sentence in the Commission's bet-hedging paragraph is simply wishful thinking -- the kind that gets copyright extended and bad legislation crafted.)

Threatening to yank WHO funding screws up the organization's priorities. The funding should be contingent on the WHO providing the best possible health assistance it can worldwide. Being an IP cop for US interests (and other countries, should they choose to go this regrettable route) shouldn't even be part of the equation.

from the alternatively,-it-could-just-deduct-$1,000-a-year-from-your-paychecks dept

As Mike discussed in a previous post, the IP Commission's report on "theft of American IP" points a finger almost exclusively at China. And, as was pointed out in another post, the report is also loaded with some genuinely terrible ideas (protect IP with malware, anyone?). Here's another one: starting a trade war with China over intellectual property. This recommendation, taken from the final pages of the document, is both a broadside against China and a genuinely terrible idea.

Generally speaking, instigating a trade war is a bad idea, even when you have the upper hand. Instigating a trade war over something as poorly defined (especially in this report) as "IP theft" is a worse idea. Instigating a trade war with a country that already has you staring down the barrel of a steep trade deficit is just asking for trouble. The US has tried this sort of thing before (to protect the American steel industry) and found itself facing retaliatory tariffs from European nations as well as having its tariffs declared illegal by the World Trade Organization.

No one truly "wins" in a trade war, but there's no shortage of losers -- mainly the consumers caught in the crossfire. But despite the enormous potential downside and the shortsightedness of this move, the commission seems to feel protecting the US from "IP theft" is worth the sacrifice. (It helps that the entire sacrifice will be borne by others.) The commission's recommendation bases itself on the claim that China alone is responsible for around 70% of the "$300 billion" it claims the US is losing every year. And it aims to make China pay... by making Americans pay. In the "Potential Future Measures" section (Chapter 14), the commission makes this suggestion:

Recommend that Congress and the administration impose a tariff on all Chinese-origin imports, designed to raise 150% of all U.S. losses from Chinese IP theft in the previous year, as estimated by the secretary of commerce. This tariff would be subject to modification by the president on national security grounds.

The argument for this proposal is that only by seriously limiting the U.S. market for Chinese goods and services will sufficient incentive be created for Chinese authorities to systematically reduce IP theft. The method proposed to accomplish that goal is to impose the calibrated tariff just described.

While such action would allow retaliation, the huge Chinese trade surplus with the United States could cause the retaliation to be ineffective. Chinese exports to the United States are between three and four times the dollar value of U.S. exports to China.

The Commission is not prepared to make such a recommendation now because of the difficulty of estimating the value of stolen IP, the difficulty of identifying the appropriate imports, and the many legal questions raised by such an action under the United States’ WTO obligations. If major IP theft continues or increases, however, the proposal should be further refined and considered.

Wonderful. Despite the fact the commission openly admits it can't accurately estimate the value of "stolen IP," and despite the fact this plan could possibly be illegal, it proposes that, in the middle of an economic downturn, the government should artificially raise the price of consumer goods in order to ensure the fiscal well-being of the MPAA, RIAA and the BSA. This would add $450 billion in tariffs onto the cost of imported goods. This works out to roughly $1,000 per person annually, or $4,000 for a family of four. China's manufacturers aren't simply going to eat the tariff. They'll either raise prices or stop shipping to the US. Costs of goods will rise in the US no matter which path they take. Kicking a major competitor out of the market tends to have that effect, especially when the competitor prices aggressively.

Now, these industries will make assurances that the money they're receiving (as part of an international "you must be a pirate" tax) will be shoved right back into the economy, either through job creation or additional investments. But those assurances won't mean much to Americans being stretched even thinner by rising prices, especially when they notice this plan basically transfers money out of their pockets and into the accounts of select US companies.

The commission feels that by artificially limiting China's exports, it can force the country to respect US intellectual property. The reward for China would be a decrease in the tariff, provided the "theft" numbers drop. But if I know anything about industries and subsidies (which this essentially is), those benefitting from this "deal" will soon be hooked on the new revenue stream and will have zero incentive to officially recognize any sort of downturn in Chinese infringement.

And if I know this, then you'd better believe China knows this. Instead of being rewarded for making efforts to curtail infringement, it will more likely see the tariff increase or hold steady, rather than decline by any appreciable amount. There's little incentive for China to improve its IP record and next to no incentive for IP industries to wean themselves off the tariff. All this will do is inch us closer to the frontlines of a trade war with the largest exporter in the world -- a war we can't hope to win and one that puts the American consumer right in the line of fire.

from the based-on-what? dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in variations on a report that came out last week, grandly titled "The IP Commission Report" as if it were some sort of official body. In the subhead, we find out that it's actually by the even more ridiculously named "The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property." Who put together this "commission"? Well, it's the National Bureau of Asian Research, which also is not an official government organization as you might think, but a private think tank that more or less was spun out of the University of Washington, and was originally the National Bureau of Asian and Soviet Research, put together at the behest of Senator Henry Jackson, who believed strongly that America should intervene around the globe to promote American interests, often at the expense of those where we were intervening. He supported interning Japanese Americans during WWII. He strongly supported the Vietnam War. He's considered the spiritual father of today's neoconservatives. As you may have guessed, the "National Bureau of Asian Research" is not exactly about figuring out the best way to understand and improve relationships between the US and Asia. It's about how US interests can dominate Asia.

As the NY Times points out, the report itself was put together by two ex-Whitehouse officials, both of whom left "on strained terms," Dennis Blair (former Director of National Intelligence) and John Huntsman Jr. (former ambassador to China, who ran for President, badly, in the last election). The report itself is quite incredible. Based on almost nothing factual, it makes incredibly sweeping statements about "IP theft" (which it never actually defines, and it seems to use the broadest possible way of determining it), and then insists that the problem is incredibly big. It also assumes, without any proof, that the only possible way to have incentives to innovate is to have the strictest possible intellectual property regime out there -- and that IP is the fundamental incentive for innovation. The fact that this has been disproved by a tremendous amount of evidence doesn't even enter into the conversation. Blair and Huntsman take it on faith that strong IP absolutely leads to greater economic benefit.

The second, and more fundamental, effect is that IP theft is undermining both the means and
the incentive for entrepreneurs to innovate, which will slow the development of new inventions and
new industries that can further expand the world economy and continue to raise the prosperity of
all. This effect has received some attention in the cases of a few industries, but it affects others as
well. Unless current trends are reversed, there is a risk of the relative stagnation of innovation, with
adverse consequences for both developed and developing countries.

Except, that's simply not true. It assumes, incorrectly, that without IP there's no incentive to innovate. Yet, actual research shows that most innovation happens because companies or individuals need the innovation themselves, or they see value in selling the actual product or service in the market. You can do that whether or not there's IP protection. But the report's authors don't even consider that a possibility -- perhaps because they're not actually even remotely tied to innovative industries.

As you might have guessed from the name of the commission itself, they talk a lot about "theft" even in nonsensical ways:

On an unprecedented level, a critical driver of this worldwide economic growth is in trouble.
Trade secrets, patents, copyrights, and trademarks are being stolen, especially from American but
also from European, Japanese, and other nations’ companies and organizations

But what does that even mean? Does it mean copied -- as in infringement? Or does it mean someone actually "stealing" the underlying products? Or does it mean somehow registering a patent or copyright or trademark away from the original holder (about the only thing that would actually be "theft")? How the hell do you "steal" a trademark anyway? Or a patent? None of this makes any sense, which makes it difficult to take seriously. The report never actually defines IP theft. It just leaves it out there, and sometimes appears to be talking about actual stealing of hard drives of information, but often, it just seems to be about whatever the hell the report's authors want it to mean. There is simply no intellectual rigor behind this. It's just throwing everything together into a giant messy, stupidly meaningless pile.

The report correctly notes that much of the value of publicly traded companies is tied up in "intangible assets" but then falsely claims that this is the same as "IP." But it's not. So much growth in intangible assets often comes from a lack of intellectual property, allowing for greater information exchange and sharing, which grows the overall pie. Leave it to a bunch of politicians to not understand the difference between a zero sum and non-zero sum economy. Throughout the report, the authors confuse any kind of intangible concept or knowledge with "intellectual property." But "intellectual property" are laws, not the actual ideas -- and knowledge grows not by strengthening the laws, but frequently by ignoring those laws and having information and innovation shared. Under this report, massive economic growth driven by open source software, for example, is credited to strong IP laws. Which is absurd.

More ridiculous: in discussing the impact of "IP theft" it only looks at one side of the equation. Take the following two examples:

Um. What about about increased sales, increased services, ability to do things more cheaply thanks to lower resource costs? How about increased incentives for innovation due to stronger motivation to keep ahead of the competition? All of those things have been widely observed. All of them are ignored.

Effects on consumers. Harm to health, harm to safety, costs incurred as a result of product failure,
decreased or increased purchasing power.

How about keeping prices of proprietary goods in check as they need to compete? How about the ability to be productive, to accomplish more for less? How about the ability to make use of these products to create even more economic wealth? Again, ignored.

Even worse, it completely ignores the fact that the $200 billion estimate it extrapolates as one basis for claiming $300 billion has been debunked over and over again, and is based on layers upon layers of bogus premises from decades ago, that today is just expanded every few years by lobbyists who insist it's growing. Of course, when the actual numbers were looked at closely, it was discovered that a more accurate assessment might be about 2% of that number. But Huntsman and Blair instead insist that the $300 billion is probably too low. Based on what? Nothing. Just the fear mongering they hear from companies and lobbyists -- the same companies who certainly have a very strong vested interest in protectionism against Chinese competitors (oh wait...).

The authors are further suckered by the ridiculous belief that China's growth in its patent system is "a response to a concerted
government effort to spark innovative activity." That's wrong. There was a concerted government effort to spark growth in the patent system because China understands what US politicians still can't grasp: patents are a purely protectionist system, and having more Chinese patents (no matter what they're for, and no matter whether or not they spur any innovation at all) means they can leverage those as a weapon against US and other foreign companies. Nearly every single major patent case in China has been a Chinese company against a foreign company and (spoilers!) the foreign company always loses.

We'll be having a few more posts about the suggested "remedies" set forth in the paper, but since they all seemed to be based on ridiculously poor methodology and assumptions, as you can imagine, the recommendations are ridiculously problematic as well. We'll highlight one quick one, and then delve in deeper in a few later posts:

Designate the national security advisor as the principal policy coordinator for all actions on the
protection of American IP.

Yes, you read that right. They want to elevate "the protection of American IP" to the level of a national security issue. As if it hasn't already gotten to an insane level by having Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement cowboys shutting down websites based on nothing. Now we're going to make it into a national security issue? Based on a report that's almost entirely wrong? Yikes.

The whole paper is incredibly problematic, based on bad methodology and ridiculously bad assumptions. It conflates a number of different topics, ignores significant amounts of well-respected research debunking huge parts of the claims, and makes a number of outlandish statements based on a near total ignorance of how actual innovation works today. The paper is a complete joke.

from the what-is-he-smoking dept

Senator Orrin Hatch has taken a back seat on various "intellectual property" issues in the past few years, as some other Senators have stepped up. But, for years, he was Hollywood's "go to" Senator for bad legislation. One of the running gags throughout Rob Reid's awesome novel Year Zero is how Senator Orrin Hatch is called "Senator Fido" because he's "the entertainment industry's pet Senator." Among his list of bad ideas was a plan to destroy the computers of people accused of downloading, a bill called the PIRATE Act, which would have given the FBI authority over civil copyright infringement claims so they could go after your kids for downloading, and the infamous INDUCE Act, which would have made a ton of stuff illegal, including potentially iPods, FTP, 3D printers and much much more. When asked to defend such craziness, Hatch claimed that it might not work but it still needed to be done. Thankfully, it did not pass.

“Intellectual property and innovation are the cornerstones of American competitiveness and job creation. Yet in recent years, they are all too often relegated to second tier status in our trade policy,” said Hatch. “With our economic competitors getting more sophisticated by the day, finding more ways to steal, expropriate or otherwise undermine the value of U.S. innovation, negotiating strong intellectual property agreements and enforcing them is a necessity, not an option. The establishment of a Chief Innovation and Intellectual Property Negotiator will give intellectual property and innovation the stature they deserve. The Office will help guarantee that America remains at the forefront of innovation policy, that our trade agreements reflect the critical importance of intellectual property to our economy and that the preservation of high-standard IP protection and enforcement are at the forefront of every trade debate.”

Of course, all this really shows is how incredibly out of touch or corrupt Senator Hatch is. First, as we've seen from ACTA to TPP to TAFTA and a variety of other trade agreements in between, "IP" issues have been front and center for the USTR negotiating team. To claim that they have been relegated to "second tier status" is laughable -- especially if you're familiar with the history of such agreements. For years, IP wasn't even considered a major issue for trade negotiations, until a few decades ago when the entertainment industry realized this was a good way to force Congress (and legislatures around the world) to adopt laws they wanted. And then it quickly became a key piece of every trade agreement.

It further shows just how incredibly out of touch Hatch is, because just as he's proposing this bill, tons of public interest and civil service groups and organizations have explicitly called for the end to the practice of lumping patents, trademarks and copyrights into free trade agreements, since they really have no place there.

Finally, the idea that stronger IP laws will "guarantee that America remains at the forefront of innovation policy," isn't just wrong, it's downright dangerous. Other countries have properly recognized that there is no link between IP and actual innovation, and that IP laws are really just a tool for protectionism against American companies.

Hatch fashions himself a "professional musician," and so every so often he feels the need to throw off a favor or two to the RIAA -- but this is ridiculous. Patents, trademarks and copyrights shouldn't be international trade issues at all, and they already have way too much prominence in such discussions. Claiming they need to be elevated is the exact incorrect stance to take.

there is no direct correlation between IP and Innovation even for the Small and Medium Industries. The technological progress even in the developed world had been achieved not through IP protection but through focussed governmental interventions like compulsory licenses, cross licensing, government funding, and competition policy. It is unfortunate that some of the technologically developed countries would like to showcase the positive effect of IP on innovation, when historically these countries including the proponents of this Agenda Item have reached this stage of technological development by focussing solely on the development of their own domestic industry without caring for the intellectuals property rights of the foreigners or the right holders. After achieving a high level of development, they are now attempting to perpetuate their hold on their technologies by making a push towards a TRIPS plus regime.

The last part is a clear dig at the US, which began as a pirate nation, but is now trying to impose the highest level of protection for intellectual monopolies on countries that are still at an early stage of their development, through the many bilateral treaties it has signed with them, as well as things like ACTA and TPP. The statement from India goes on:

Their agenda is not to create an environment where developing countries progress technologically, but to block their progress through the stringent IP regime. It is therefore essential that the flexibilities provided by the TRIPS Agreement need to be secured at any cost, if the people in the developing countries are to enjoy the benefits of innovations.

That is, far from acting as a spur to innovation in countries like India, intellectual monopolies prevent small- and medium-sized companies there from progressing to the point where they are able to compete in global markets with the Western enterprises that are pushing for stricter enforcement of patents and trademarks. This is why emerging countries would do well to think twice before signing up to restrictive FTAs and wide-ranging agreements like TPP that are specifically designed to keep them at a lower level of technological development.

from the unfortunate dept

Despite growing protests and concerns about the next big US trade agreement (with Europe), the discussions on the Trans Pacific Partnership continue to move forward, with the latest round taking place in Singapore this week. And... once again, it's a story of near complete secrecy, and a total lack of transparency. Of key concern, of course, are the sections of the agreement on patents and copyrights, which the public has not seen. There was a leak from over two years ago, but nothing since then. The USTR and others say that they want the agreement completed by this fall, and it is a complete travesty that they have not been willing to share the details publicly. Negotiating a treaty in complete secrecy -- especially when the "input" on the IP chapter is driven by industry stakeholders, rather than the public -- means that the treaty almost certainly is going to be a disaster that is harmful to the public.

What's most amazing is that the USTR doesn't seem to recognize that the playing field has changed since the last time they did this. The rejection of SOPA, followed by the widespread rejection of ACTA (even if the USTR is in total denial about this) shows that the public is not at all willing to accept backroom deals that fundamentally expand bad patent and copyright policies around the globe and (worse) lock us in to things that the public does not believe are legitimate.

The USTR's continued insistence on secrecy, combined with the few leaks of information showing just how extreme a position they're setting out for themselves on patents and copyrights, suggests an organization so totally out of touch that it is destroying its own credibility. Any reasonable organization would recognize that the old backroom negotiations method of creating these kinds of deals is no longer acceptable. That the USTR refuses to admit this only increases awareness of just how out of touch the organization and its leadership remain.

from the it-never-ends dept

ACTA and SOPA may have flopped, but minor setbacks like that won't stop the onslaught of abuses from the entertainment and pharmaceutical industries looking to use the international treaty process to try to pressure everyone to keep ratcheting up protectionist laws concerning copyright, patents and trademarks. Obviously, we've been talking about the still worrisome TPP agreement involving a bunch of Pacific Rim countries, but it's not stopping there. Back in October, we warned that the US and EU were preparing a new trade agreement as well, and the preliminary plans noted that it would include a "high level of intellectual property protection, including enforcement."

More details are starting to come out as the main EU negotiator for ACTA, Karel de Gucht, came to DC to see about getting things kicked off, on an agreement that's being called TAFTA -- the Trans Atlantic "Free Trade" Agreement. Of course, instead of recognizing the lessons from previous failed efforts to push for broken maximalist policies, it appears that the plan is to try, try again. Some are already saying that this is "the opportunity to try to set the gold standard" in copyright, patent and trademark protection. The goal, as with ACTA and TPP is to ratchet up the laws, and then put tons of pressure on China and India to "respect" those laws. To put it mildly: this is stupid. Both of those countries recognize how protectionism works. We've already seen that China is becoming exceptionally good at using patent laws to basically punish foreign companies, while helping domestic Chinese companies. It seems downright idiotic to provide them with even more tools to do so.

Of course, the real questions are why do we keep letting our governments negotiate these kinds of deals, and why do we let them do so in secret?